District of Colombia or commonly referred to as Washington, DC is the capital of the United States. It is bordered by the states of Virginia to the southwest and Maryland to the northeast. So when Michael and I went to visit his State College friends, who now work in DC, we had to go to Virginia for Dave (who was gracious enough to let us stay in a house that he shares with 3 other guys) and to Maryland for the rest of the gang.

Michael’s friend, Michael Austin, picked us up from West Chester,Philadelphia and drove* us to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (of which we stayed for 2 nights and will blog about it on another day) and to Washington, DC. *Time specifics to follow on another blog.

Dave picked us up at Target Mall, somewhere in Virgina (pardon my lack of specifics of the geographic location as things just happened too fast). And when we got to their place at Seven Oaks, he told us to suit up for the Chick-fil-A free meal.

Background: Chick-fil-A is a fast food chain in the US that specializes in chicken entrées. And on this special day, anyone can get a free meal in any Chick-fil-A branch if you can dress up like the Chick-fil-A mascot.

Dave managed to print us out some Chick-fil-A cut-outs and it was then to each to his own imagination on how to make the costume. We somehow just all ended up following his suggestion though, that is to get a white T-shirt and cover it up with black patches here and there, stick a tail and a pair of hoofs somewhere and voila!

*If you notice the bruise on my right leg, that was courtesy of Connor’s very excited dog. Connor is a friend from Sayre, PA. I will discuss more details on the cast of characters of my US of A adventures but of course, I will leave their real identities a mystery, well maybe except for some.

Or the other way around, black cow with white spots.

And off we went to Chick-fil-A, pretty confident with what we have accomplished and excited to get our free meals. But when we got there, everyone else seemed to be more resourceful.

This picture is actually taken from Chick-fil-A’s website but pretty much this is close to reality.

Well, we still got our free chicken meal. In fact, Dave got a second serving just for principle.

Interstate Highways along Illinois, Iowa and NebraskaWeek 4 Day 28 July 22 Friday

We left the Millian’s suburban gold coast abode around 7 am to start off our journey to Fort Collins, Colorado. That would be the farthest west that we could get.

At 8:17 am, along Western Illinois area, this was the sky situation…

I admit that I got pretty scared, considering that there seemed to be no other way but just to bravely pass through it. We were in an interstate highway and if we pull over; (a) we would get to Fort Collins on a later time and (b) we would be stuck in the middle of this mad weather of which we want to evade in the first place. As much as we want to huff and puff and blow the mad weather away, we simply cannot do so off we went, braving it through, that is.

There was a truck in front of us that was somehow spewing out unidentified materials from its back and it was quite a challenge to overtake the truck since the road view ahead was blurry due to heavy rainfall. This went on for a good 20 minutes or so and then…

Clear and blue sky as if nothing happened.

And around 9pm, the sun finally set but we were just starting our adventure in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Then off to Union Square Station to try out the NYC subway. However it was great to know that it was Market Day, the smell of home-baked bread and freshly picked fruits, flowers and vegetables was very enticing.

Time Square, NYC

China Daily along Broadway, NYC

It’s like we never left Shanghai or maybe because China is everywhere.

I forgot to mention that there were other places that I’ve been to other than the list that I’ve enumerated in my previous blog. On our second week, when Michael finally got his driver’s license and we eventually had our car (courtesy of Mrs. Sarah V), Michael brought me to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to meet my classmate of 12 years* from Davao Central High School, Batch 1995.

*I went to a bilingual school in Davao City, Philippines where we were in a blocked class from kindergarten years until senior year in high school. It was Section B class for all 12 years and it was usually a class of 46 students or less.

HighlightsCynthia’s 4 year old daughter is a very sweet girl. It was charming how apologetic she was for being not able to pick flowers for us from her mom’s backyard. She is a very smart girl who was very excited to show us her craft works.

Highway SpecificsIt was a 4 hour drive from Sayre, Pennsylvania. There were a lot of very small town roads that we drove through on our way to where Cynthia lives.

Note: I’m going to write some of my adventures in a backward order. Just bear with it for now. This US trip has been very enriching for me and although I initially planned on having a progressive travel blog, it was pretty challenging since my travel partner and I have been all over the place in quite a short period at a time. So, I was savouring my moment in the places that we’ve been while socializing and meeting new friends at the same time. We flew from Shanghai, China in 24 June, Saturday at about 8pm, arrived in Newark, New Jersey on the same day at around 9pm or so. It was a 16hours or so, ordeal on top of the 2hours delay from Shanghai. To date, I would try to recall the places that we’ve to so far:

I will eventually post how I spent my time in each place in time before I get back to Shanghai.

For now, I will share a few pictures from my time at the Denver National Museum of Nature and Science. I went there with Kaitlin and Michael last Wednesday, 27 July.

We left around 7:30am since Kaitlin had to do some volunteer work at the museum. Kaitlin is a really cool and smart girl. She’s one of the many good friends that Michael have in the US. She studied Biological Anthropology in Colorado State University and did an internship with the team of expert scientists behind the digging of the Mammoth fossil relics in Snowmass, Colorado.

While Kaitlin had to work on the Mammoth fossils, Michael and I got to explore the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Click this link for more details: http://www.dmns.org/).

We signed up for the IMAX 2D movie: Journey to Space in the morning. While waiting for our movie schedule, we checked out the Space Odyssey exhibit area. It was the most fascinating exhibit that I have seen so far. You should check out their link:http://www.dmns.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/space-odyssey

I have become very fond of watching IMAX movies that right after watching Journey, we moved on into watching Mysteries of the Great Lakes. It was a story about the near-extinction of the Sturgeons. I was deeply touched by the dedication of the team that went out of their way to make sure that Sturgeons continue to breed healthily.

After meeting up with Kaitlin for lunch, Michael and I went to the exhibit about Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship (Here is the link: http://whydah.com).

The exhibit showcased a lot of the discovered bits and pieces of the pirates’ weapons, clothing, gear, and other possessions that have been plucked from the wreck of the Whydah Gally off Cape Cod. I found it interestingly funny to be walking alongside excited pre-school kids who happened to be having their summer group tour in the museum. It made me reminisce about my pre-school days, minus the museum tours (because we didn’t have any).

Afterwards, we went to the Prehistoric Journey area, where there were a lot of ginormous Dinosaur fossil castings. I find this battle between the Allosaurus and the Stegosaurus completely captivating:

I tried to compare my bite with theirs but I think it’s pretty obvious that I am no match.

They did stand tall among the rest of their species.

Yikes! For more details about Prehistoric Journey, check their link (http://www.dmns.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/prehistoric-journey exhibit).

We ended our tour by going to the Expedition Health exhibit area where we had to be given a Peak Pass so we can better enjoy our expedition to find out more about our health.

Now, it’s 3:58 AM here and as much as I want to blog more about the rest of my trip, I need to be healthy to do so.

Michael brought me to the Rocky Mountains National Park, which was a 2-hour drive away from where we were staying.

When we got to the Alpine Visitor Center, I felt dizzy and my head hurt a bit due to altitude change. From the information center of the park, we were given a flyer that shows instructions and suggested activities in the mountains. The thing that caught my interest was their warning about seeing bears. That is, if we get to see one. It says, that if ever we see one, we should act or appear tall and wave our hands around but if the bear attacks us, we should fight back. Yes, fight back, spelled out in bold letters. Yikes!

Anyways, when we managed to get our bearings, we tried to go hiking, maybe around 1 kilometer or less thereabouts. Even though it was summer time in the US, there were a lot of snow caps on top of the mountain. Thus, we tried to have little snow ball fight.

Yes, I was not dressed up for the winter because it was hot in the average ground level, that is where the foothills of the mountain was. So, I was shivering in the cold but that did not stop me from making my first snowballs.

*According to wikipedia, US has 58 protected areas known as national parks. It was signed into law through the Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.